Silke Kraushaar-Pielach

Silke Kraushaar-Pielach
nation	Germany
birthday	October 10, 1970
place of birth	Sonneberg ,  GDR
size	177 cm
Weight	66 kg
job	Sports soldier
Career
discipline	Single seater women
society	BSR Rennsteig Oberhof
Trainer	Norbert Hahn, Bernhard Glass
National squad	since 1995
status	resigned
End of career	2008
Medal table
Olympic medals 1 × 1 × 1 × World Cup medals 3 × 2 × 2 × EM medals 6 × 3 × 0 × National medals 6 × 2 × 5 ×
winter Olympics gold Nagano 1998 Single seater bronze Salt Lake City 2002 Single seater silver Turin 2006 Single seater
Placements in the Luge World Cup
Debut in the World Cup 1997  World Cup victories 36  Overall World Cup ES 1. (98/99, 00/01, 01/02, 05/06, 06/07)  Challenge Cup ES 1. (06/07, 07/08)

Silke Kraushaar-Pielach , b. Kraushaar (born October 10, 1970 in Sonneberg / Suhl district of the GDR ) is a former German luge athlete and Olympic champion .

In her international career, which lasted more than ten years, Kraushaar-Pielach won a complete set of Olympic medals, including a gold medal in Nagano in 1998. She also became a four-time world champion and six-time European champion. The Thuringian also triumphed six times at German championships, plus five overall World Cup victories and 36 victories in individual World Cups. Together with Sylke Otto, she is the most successful athlete in reunified Germany.

Career

First successes (until 1997)

At the age of 14, in 1984, Kraushaar began her career at the Kinder- und Jugend-Sportschule (KJS) Oberhof . Kraushaar celebrated her first success in the women's field at the age of 17 at the GDR championships, where she was runner- up behind Ute Oberhoffner . In 1991 she placed third in the overall German championship, and two years later she secured the bronze medal. Because of these good results, she gave a small but unsuccessful interlude in the 1992 World Cup. Since the four-man German national team with Gabi Kohlisch , Susi Erdmann , Jana Bode and Sylke Otto consisted of successful veterans, the Sonneberg woman only managed to qualify for the Luge World Cup again in 1995 at the age of 25 . Right away, she celebrated her first World Cup victories in the first two World Cup races of the 1996/97 season , to which Olympic champion Jens Müller said: “ With her skill, she could have brought this performance long ago. The others just never let her get up in the past. ”Overall, despite three and thus the most World Cup victories, she finished the season only in fourth place in the overall World Cup. She also won the silver medal with the team at the 1997 World Championships .

International breakthrough (1997-2000)

The winter of 1997/98 was Kraushaars' most successful to date. Although she only managed one more World Cup victory, thanks to consistently good results on the podium, she still achieved second overall World Cup rank. In addition, she won the 1998 European championship on her home track, the Oberhof luge track , both in a single-seater and with the team. But the greatest success was the gold medal at the Olympic toboggan competitions in Nagano . There she triumphed in a German double victory with two thousandths of a second ahead of Barbara Niedernhuber and thus ensured that the German athletes won all three luge competitions.

With a winning streak of four World Cup triumphs in a row, the Sonneberg woman secured victory in the overall World Cup for the first time in the 1998/99 season, ahead of her teammates Otto and Niedernhuber. At the 1999 World Championships she was not so successful and, as seventh in the single-seater, she clearly missed her first individual World Championship medal as the worst of five Germans. The day before she had won the silver medal with Team Germany I. In the 1999/2000 World Cup she missed the defense of the overall World Cup, but with two victories she was only 55 points behind her successor Sylke Otto, who won there for the second time. At the World Championships she had to give up again in fourth place to the strong national competition, the Germans even managed a five-fold success. There was also a German double victory in the team competition, with Kraushaar winning with Team Germany II and becoming world champion for the first time. She ended the European Championship with an individual silver medal, but the association did not use her in the team.

German dominance and many gold medals (2000-2004)

With three World Cup victories and four second places, Kraushaar regained victory in the overall standings from Sylke Otto in the 2000/01 World Cup , and she also won her first World Cup medal in the single-seater by placing second behind Otto at the 2001 World Championships . She also won the gold medal in the team competition again. Since she won four times again in the 2001/02 World Cup season - her triumphs 13 to 16 - she defended the overall World Cup. Sylke Otto was second again, she and Kraushaar accounted for almost all victories in international competitions at that time. At the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City , the girl from Sonneberg won the bronze medal behind Otto and Barbara Niedernhuber, she was also European champion in the team and won the silver medal in the single-seater.

Although she was unable to build on the successes of the previous winters in the 2002/03 season and only managed to win one, she still placed second in the overall World Cup behind Sylke Otto, who had won six out of seven races. At the 2003 World Cup , the superiority of Kraushaar and Otto was shown, as both of them separated from the rest of the starting field by more than half a second. After all, the German missed her first individual world championship title by just over two hundredths of a second, Otto was used instead of her in the team. The 2003/04 season was again particularly successful for Kraushaar, especially at the major events. In the World Cup , she had to admit defeat to Sylke Otto again, despite three victories, but she finally managed the first single-seater victory at the World Championships with a track record in the second round, after she had only finished fourth in the first run. At the European Championships, she secured both the team and single-seater titles, making her European champion for the fourth time.

Successful years until the end of a career (2004–2008)

In the winter of 2004/05 Kraushaar first competed in the Challenge Cup , in which Sylke Otto had dominated until then. There she achieved some good results straight away, so that she finished second in the overall classification behind the surprisingly strong Ukrainian Natalja Jakuschenko . She also placed second in the overall World Cup of the season, where she triumphed twice. A disappointment, which she described in retrospect as the greatest of her career, was the disqualification at the 2005 World Championships , where she had already been declared the winner. It was also not used in the team competition of these world championships.

In the Challenge Cup of the 2005/06 Olympic season, the girl from Sonneberg placed fifth , and thanks to four World Cup victories, she won the overall World Cup after a four-year break. With two titles at the European Championship, she became the favorite for her last Olympic Games in Turin in 2006 . There she did not win, but completed the Olympic medal set with the silver medal behind Sylke Otto, after she had already won gold and bronze eight and four years earlier respectively. The 2006/07 season was again very successful for Kraushaar-Pielach, for the fourth time it secured the title in the overall World Cup, for the first time in the Challenge Cup . She also achieved the bronze medal at the world championships .

Kraushaar-Pielach started the winter of 2007/08 with a second place in their last German championship. Then she achieved the only victory in the World Cup right at the first World Cup station, her 36th, with which she missed the record of most victories for Sylke Otto by just one triumph. In Tatjana Hüfner's first overall World Cup victory , the German came second again, so that she was always in the top three of the overall World Cup for ten years in a row. In the Challenge Cup she also won the overall standings for the second time in a row, at the European Championship in 2008 she won silver behind her young competitor Hüfner. Her last major event was the 2008 World Championships , where she won the bronze medal. Kraushaar-Pielach contested the last kilometers of racing in Sigulda on February 19, 2008 , before ending her career.

For the silver medal at the Winter Olympics , she received the silver laurel leaf from Federal President Köhler on June 15, 2006 .

Wok World Championships

Since the 2nd Wok World Championship in 2004, Kraushaar has already participated in this fun race five times. With two wins in the four-wok in 2006 and 2008, she is third in the unofficial medal table. In both triumphs, she rode in a team with other, partly former, professional toboggan or bobsleigh athletes such as Susi Erdmann , Sandra Kiriasis or Christoph Langen . In the one-man wok they have not went to the start.

successes

Overall World Cup

season	space	Points
1996/97	0?.	0?
1997/98	02.	0?
1998/99	01.	0586
1999/2000	02.	0570
2000/01	01.	0740
2001/02	01.	0555
2000/03	02.	0535
2003/04	02.	0667
2004/05	02.	0625
2005/06	01.	0710
2006/07	01.	0845
2000/08	02.	0650

World Cup victories

Single seater

Team relay

No. date place train 1. 0Dec 2, 1996  Sigulda Sigulda luge and bobsleigh track 2. 0Dec 6, 1996  Lillehammer Hunderfossen bobsleigh and sled run 3. Dec 22, 1996  Koenigssee Combined artificial ice rink at Königssee 4th Jan. 18, 1998  Altenberg Altenberg racing sled and bobsled run 5. Dec 12, 1998  Sigulda Sigulda luge and bobsleigh track 6th Dec 19, 1998  Winterberg Winterberg bobsleigh run 7th Jan. 16, 1999  Oberhof Oberhof luge track 8th. 0Feb 5, 1999  St. Moritz Olympia Bobrun St. Moritz – Celerina 4th Nov 28, 1999  Altenberg Altenberg racing sled and bobsled run 10. Feb 13, 2000  Oberhof Oberhof luge track 11. Nov 26, 2000  Sigulda Sigulda luge and bobsleigh track 12. Dec 20, 2000  La Plagne La Plagne bobsleigh and sled run 13. Feb 11, 2001  Park City Park City bobsleigh 14th Feb 28, 2001  Lake Placid Olympic bobsleigh track Lake Placid 15th 0Dec 9, 2001  Koenigssee Koenigssee artificial ice rink 16. Dec 13, 2001  innsbruck Igls artificial ice rink bobsleigh 17th Dec 16, 2001  Oberhof Oberhof luge track 18th Jan. 20, 2002  Sigulda Sigulda luge and bobsleigh track 19th 0Dec 8, 2002  Oberhof Oberhof luge track 20th Nov 16, 2003  Sigulda Sigulda luge and bobsleigh track 21st Nov 23, 2003  Altenberg Altenberg racing sled and bobsled run 22nd Dec 13, 2003  Park City Park City bobsleigh 23. Nov 21, 2004  Sigulda Sigulda luge and bobsleigh track 24. 0Jan. 6, 2005  Koenigssee Koenigssee artificial ice rink 25th Nov 26, 2005  Sigulda Sigulda luge and bobsleigh track 26th Dec 10, 2005  Calgary Bobsleigh and sled run in Canada Olympic Park 27. Dec 17, 2005  Lake Placid Olympic bobsleigh track Lake Placid 28. Jan 15, 2006  innsbruck Igls artificial ice rink bobsleigh 29 Nov 19, 2006  Cesana Cesana Pariol 30th 0Dec 3, 2006  Park City Park City bobsleigh 31. Dec 17, 2006  Nagano Bobsleigh track in Asakawa 32. 0Jan. 7, 2007  Koenigssee Koenigssee artificial ice rink 33. Jan. 14, 2007  Oberhof Oberhof luge track 34. Jan. 21, 2007  Altenberg Altenberg racing sled and bobsled run 35. Feb. 18, 2007  Sigulda Sigulda luge and bobsleigh track 36. Nov 17, 2007  Lake Placid Olympic bobsleigh track Lake Placid

No. date place train 1. 0Dec 6, 2003  Calgary Bobsleigh and sled run in Canada Olympic Park 2. Dec 20, 2004  Lake Placid Olympic bobsleigh track Lake Placid 3. 0Jan. 2, 2005  Oberhof Oberhof luge track 4th Dec 17, 2006  Nagano Bobsleigh track in Asakawa 5. 0Jan. 7, 2007  Koenigssee Koenigssee artificial ice rink 6th Feb 11, 2007  Winterberg Winterberg bobsleigh run 7th 0Jan. 6, 2008  Koenigssee Koenigssee artificial ice rink

Private life

The Thuringian , who starts for the BSR Rennsteig Oberhof , is a trained educator. Since 1991 she has been a member of the Bundeswehr sports promotion group in Oberhof. After the end of her career, she started a career in the Bobsleigh and Sled Association for Germany (BSD) as manager of the toboggan department. On July 7, 2006, Silke Kraushaar married a self-employed businessman in her hometown of Sonneberg and has been using the double name Kraushaar-Pielach ever since.

Others

She competed in the second season of the competition show Eternal Heroes, which aired from February 14 to April 4, 2017 .

literature

• Thomas Höfling: Silke Kraushaar - toboggan lady in close-up . Frankenschwelle publishing house, Hildburghausen 1999, ISBN 3-86180-090-X .
• Short biography about:  Kraushaar, Silke . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Star portrait: Silke Kraushaar. (No longer available online.) In: movie-fan.de. November 14, 2006, archived from the original on June 13, 2011 ; Retrieved January 17, 2009 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
2. ↑ Wolfgang Harder: Silke Kraushaar swims freely among sharks. In: Berliner Zeitung. December 16, 1996, accessed January 17, 2009 . 
3. ↑ Torsten Teichert: Rain of medals for Germans. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung. February 14, 2004, accessed June 1, 2015 . 
4. ↑ Thomas Spafke: Out of the mill into real life. In: silkekraushaar.de. Free Word, November 25, 2008, accessed January 18, 2009 . 
5. ↑ "It was funny". In: silkekraushaar.de. February 19, 2008, accessed January 18, 2009 . 
6. ↑ Olympic runner -up will start as Silke Kraushaar-Pielach in the future . In: fil-luge.org . August 21, 2006. Retrieved January 19, 2009

Web links

• Silke Kraushaar-Pielach in the database of the International Luge Federation
• Literature by and about Silke Kraushaar-Pielach in the catalog of the German National Library
• Website from Silke Kraushaar